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And there are reasons CNN can track down the masterminds behind the 2012 ambush but the U.S. government can’t.

These are just a sampling of the doggedly held views of a die-hard cadre of Republican lawmakers about the controversial events that led to the death 20 months ago of four Americans in Benghazi — a word that is now synonymous for conservatives with cover-up and conspiracy.

These Republicans — and there are dozens — are deeply convinced that the truth has yet to be fully aired about the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

A solid majority believe Obama and his aides have repeatedly misled Congress about the attacks, spinning a political message to promote the president’s 2012 reelection. A handful of them take as fact that then-Secretary of State Clinton obstructed the delivery of adequate security to diplomats on the front lines in Libya.

They hope that the new select committee created last week in the GOP-led House — led by loquacious former prosecutor Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) — will finally unearth the truth.

Another South Carolina GOP lawmaker, Mick Mulvaney — a Gowdy ally — contends that Congress has yet to scratch the surface of what happened in Benghazi. He says many of the unanswered questions about the attacks stem from conservatives’ deep distrust of the Obama administration.

“[The distrust] has to do with everything — whether or not the White House has fully disclosed what they know. That is the big issue,” Mulvaney said. “You can’t even start to have a discussion about what happened before, during or after until you have all the facts about who was involved and what they were doing.”

At least some of those facts have already come before Congress. Eight congressional committees — most exuberantly the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — have investigated Benghazi, poring over 25,000 pages of documents and receiving, alongside individual members, 50 briefings. A Senate Intelligence Committee panel probed the incident, concluding more could have been done to strengthen security on the ground before the attacks. And the State Department’s Accountability Review Board was critical of the department for ignoring requests for security upgrades at the Benghazi compound.

The Obama administration didn’t bolster its credibility among critics by withholding until recently an email authored by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes outlining “goals” for then- Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice in her appearances on the Sunday shows after the attacks.

Mulvaney said the select committee could uncover a number of unanswered things, including evidence of political motivation at the White House aimed at muddying the post-attack narrative.

“Do I think generally the White House has a motivation to cover up mistakes in an election year? Yes, I do,” he said.

He added, “What’s the worst-case scenario? The worst case is that someone in the White House knew that it was a concerted effort on the behalf of terrorists and they looked around … and said, ‘This is going to look very, very bad for us. We cannot tell them the truth. What can we tell them?’ And someone looked around and said we have riots down in Cairo based on these videos.”

For Gowdy — who says his new committee will function more like a “trial” — the administration’s mistakes began before the attacks. He said he plans to delve deep into Clinton’s tenure at State — underlining Democratic fears that his probe is another way to trap Clinton in the Benghazi morass just as the former first lady is considering a 2016 presidential bid.

Democrats are quick to note the risks in giving Republicans a bigger podium to discuss their Benghazi theories.

The GOP faced heavy criticism for running with unproven stories that were quickly debunked in the months after the attacks. Those included the idea that there was a “stand-down” order in which that the State Department intentionally stopped the military from rushing to Benghazi during the attacks or that Clinton personally denied requests for additional security — theories the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee rejected.